Wednesday, 30 March 2016

As part of the Star Wars Miniatures Battles project I have going on, I bought some Aquafid infantry from www.15mm.co.uk. They are pretty good look-a-likes for the Mon Calamari of the Star Wars universe, given the small scale. This is red squad, ten men each armed with blaster rifles:

And Blue squad, unfortunately there isn't enough poses in the Aquafid figures to allow for other weapons, but I'm happy enough with them as they are. They were dead easy to paint, I just gave them all grey jumpsuits and quick inkwash.

Also, I created an Excel file for the Hero Record sheet for Star Wars, I have uploaded it to Google documents and you can download it:

It has all the formulas worked out so just input the numbers and away you go. I have also created a record sheet for the Rebel heroes, Luke, Han, Leia, Chewie, Lando and Obi-Wan, with the stats taken from the Star Wars Roleplaying 2nd Edition Empire Strikes Back supplement (obviously Ob-Wan came from the A New Hope supplement...). These can be downloaded

Saturday, 26 March 2016

The final unit for the French I Corps of the 100 Days that I have been putting together for my Blücher project is the 1st Cavalry Division commanded by Général de Division Baron Charles-Claude Jaquinot. This unit was made up of the four regiments of 7e Régiment de Hussards, 3e Régiment de Chasseurs-à-Cheval, 3e Régiment de Chevaux-légers (Lanciers) and 4e Régiment de Chevaux-légers (Lanciers). Each of these regiments were represented by 6 figures in the appropriate uniforms.

The Lancers take up the back row, whilst the Hussars and Chasseurs lead the charge. The Division was in the thick of the action during Waterloo, being instrumental in counter attacking the charge of the Union and Hosuehold Brigades.

The unit is a nice mix of French cavalry types and was a pleasure to paint.

I know the lancers probably wouldn't have carried their flags into battle with them, but it's a nice touch to the base and, more importantly, it means I don't waste any figures.

This brings I Corps to an end, so here they are all in their full glory, nine bases in all, along with a sub-commander.

In game terms this is only about 100 points, so I will need to double this amount of figures really to make a decent game of Blücher, but that will be a while off as I turn my attention back to the Allies.

So there's only (!) six more French Corps to finish for the full L'Armée du Nord, but that will be a long way off...

Wednesday, 23 March 2016

Last weekend Ninjasaurus and I met up to continue the game of Star Wars Miniatures Battles that was interrupted the other week, by my better half being ill. This time she was at home, so if she did fall ill again I wouldn't have to travel out to Sheffield to get her! (she is all recovered now, by the way, just a case of very bad flu). So we picked up where we left off, I set the table up as it was and the figures were laid out back in position. From the previous game, we had just reached the morale phase and dice were rolled and everyone passed, so it was on with the action!

The red Stormtrooper squad advanced from the central woods to tackle the Rebels hidden in the opposite woods. So far, so good.

On my right flank the Blue Stormtrooper Squad moved up towards the hedge row and exchanged some fire with the Rebels who had spread themselves widely in a defence line. I killed one and wounded another, but two of my troopers fell wounded whilst another was incapacitated.Things were not so good on this flank.

The Red Rebel squad around the woods took shelter behind the trees and the hill line, out of sight of my advancing soldiers.

Meanwhile on the right flank, after an exchange of fire, both the Stormtroopers and the Rebels failed their morale and both were forced to withdraw!

It's not surprising, since the Stormtroopers had taken quite a hammering by this point.

I moved in a pincer attack with two squads on the Rebel HQ and Red squad situated in the woods (carefully avoiding the cat wompa on the left...) and set up ready to pour blaster fire into the defenders!

But then disaster struck as a Rebel grenade killed two and injured six of my red squad!

Another came flying out at my Green squad and did almost as much damage!

As the firing is simultaneous in SWMB, I was able to destroy his HQ and good few of the Rebel soldiers in the woods, but things were looking pretty bleak!

However, I pulled the men together and launched a charge on the Rebel held wood. As I had double the amount of attackers than defenders, I didn't need a morale test to see if they would charge.The Rebels rolled their receiving a charge test and passed that as well.

But just as I was pairing off the melee, the Rebels over the hill launched their own counter attack and hit my men in the flank and rear!

A furious clash saw some casualties, but more devastating for me was the morale collapse of my troopers, who fell back from the fight!

Seeing victory slipping away from me, I sent the remainder of the green squad into the woods to try and finish off the Rebels.

The Rebels pulled out their remaining grenades, the first of which killed the entire Red squad, largely because they were already wounded. The other grenade, thankfully for me, fell short and actually nearly wiped out the remaining Rebels!

Things had been quiet on the right flank until I began moving the remaining Stormtroopers into a position to support the woodland melee. This brought them into sight of the second Rebel squad, who's blaster fire reduced their number!

More morale failures saw this squad also fleeing for the table edge. At this juncture I threw in the towel, both of my remaining squads were badly mauled and I would have needed some pretty good morale rolls to get them fighting fit again. The Rebels held the area and were the clear victors.

We finished off the day with a quick (ish) game of Medieval Mastery, a board game I picked up cheap recently. It was a bit of a cross between Risk, Settlers of Catan and Small World. Once we had the rules down, it was easy enough to play with only a few glances at the rule book. One to check out.

Saturday, 19 March 2016

And finally, the last base of infantry for the French I Corps at Waterloo is the
Brigade commanded by Général de Brigade Jean-Louis Brue. This was the second brigade of 4th Division and was made up of the 85th Line and the 95th Line regiments.

Along with the rest of the Division, this unit was involved in the fighting at Papelotte on Napoleon's right flank.

In Blücher, this unit is considered to be understrength, probably because the two battalions of the 85th only numbered 631 men. So, I have represented this by the visual shorthand of three battalions. On my base, the 85th have merged their two battalions into one.

This is the final infantry unit for the French I Corps, I just have a cavalry division to paint now and the Corps will be finished!

Wednesday, 16 March 2016

On Sunday Ninjasaurus Rex and I gathered at Dean's place for our second game in the desert campaign that Dean has started running. This was a fictional encounter between an Italian defence force facing against a British recce unit. Both sides were expecting reinforcements which would enter the game at a random point and randomly along the start lines.

The Italian defenders were dug-in and consisted of two companies of colonial troops, a couple of heavy machine guns, two mortars, higher command and two field guns. The British attackers had two sections of engineers and higher command in Universal Carriers, three Vickers MK IV light tanks, three Humber Mark Is, two companies of infantry in trucks, supported by mortars, a 6lber Portee truck, a towed AA gun and two towed 25lbers. A quite light force, all in all. The reinforcements for both sides consisted of various tanks.

A wadi ran the length of the table, which gave protection from fire and spotting, but could only be entered in two places. The Italians held the top of the table helped by two mine fields and belts of barbed wire. I took the British and this was the initial set up.

With the threat of reinforcement coming at any time, I felt it better to hit the Italians hard and pushed forward into them.

However, his initial round of reactive fire took out a Universal Carrier, a Humber scout car and heavily damaged another Humber.

Not only that, but he destroyed the AA gun and truck along with the truck for the portee gun! I was complacent about the Italians from the previous game and things were not looking good!

Mind you, once my forces began firing things shifted, I silenced a machine gun and one of the field guns.

Nosing forward, I directed the two remaining Humbers around the mine field and got the Vickers tanks close to the sand dunes where more Colonial troops were hiding.

Italian fire was not as successful this time as my infantry de-bussed and exchanged shots with them behind their defences.

The engineers began clearing the large minefield in front of the Italian wire and the 25lbers set up behind the safety of the wadi in order to commence firing on the Italian positions.

There was hard fighting in the centre with the Italians losing out to my armoured cars and infantry.

On the right flank the three Vickers crested the sand dunes and started firing at the colonial troops behind them.

The British higher command in the Universal Carrier directed the 25lbers to fire on the Italian positions, but with very desultory results.

It was the rifles of the infantry and machine guns of the vehicles that were causing the most damage.

The minefield was cleared and on the right flank the Vickers tanks had forced the colonial troops back to the defences, British infantry on the left swarmed over the barbed wire and the Italians were very much on the back foot at this stage.

It was looking decidedly empty on the Italian side of the lines as the British tracked vehicles chewed up the barbed wire. Still no sign of reinforcements from either side though!

Then suddenly swooping out of the sun an Italian CR.42 Falco strafed the British higher command in the Universal Carrier. They were easy pickings with no AA fire from my side.

The aircraft killed the passengers and the loss of my commander as a spotter effectively put my 25lbers out of action.

Despite taking heavy losses, my morale stayed intact and the Humbers and Vickers were able to destroy the remaining Italian defenders. We decided that the reinforcements would have been shot to pieces as they arrived so finished the game there with another British victory.

It was another exciting and action packed fight in the desert. The Italian defence looked pretty sharp initially, but was soon knocked about by the armoured vehicles. The high losses on my part were due to a reconnaissance unit being forced to attack rather than heading back to the main unit to report! It certainly looked touch-and-go when the Italian fire started wrecking my attack...

We finished the day off with two games of Memoir '44, which Dean had got for Christmas but had not yet played. I won both of those as well...

Saturday, 12 March 2016

I'm getting so close to finishing I Corps now! This is the seventh base of eight, the 1st Brigade of 4th Infantry Division, commanded by Général de Brigade Chevalier Jean-Gaudens-Claude Pegot and consisting of two battalions of the 8th Line and two battalions of the 29th Line.

This unit was the lead division as the corps approached Quatre-Bras and was switched to Ligny on the 16th, where it remained whilst the rest of Corps marched back to Quatre-Bras.

Another solid French Line unit, it was then involved in the fighting around Papelotte on Napoleon's right at Waterloo.

This is another base down and only two more (including the cavalry) to go, so stay tuned for more!